The Doctor in the PhotoBooth's POV
by bookdiva
Summary: The main scenes of the episode from Booth's POV.
1. The Slow Clap

"It gets you every single time. The slow clap," Hannah said, smiling at him. "You get misty."

He smiled back at her.

"That holds no meaning for me," Bones said. He felt a slight irritation at her lack of understanding. It seemed that the things that used to endear her to him now annoyed the hell out of him.

Without thinking about it, he was explaining it to her—it was a reflex.

"You know, like in the movies? When the hero…he, ah takes some sort of a big chance."

Then Hannah cut in, "Makes a speech, stands up to authority?"

"The old guy gets up and he starts clapping—really slow at first, then everybody joins in?"

"Have you ID'd the victim yet?" she asked in an obvious attempt to change the subject. That annoyed him even more.

_She is hopeless. Why do I even try? _he thought.

"Nah, the description was too general," he said giving up on trying to get her to understand.

"Yes," she said shortly, "even though Cam and I discovered that she was very likely a surgeon."

"How's that?" he asked. Beside him, Hannah began to type into her computer.

"Occupational markers on the phalanges," she stated in her squinty voice. Normally it would make him smile, but now it only further annoyed him.

"Um, a surgeon named Dr. Lauren Eames disappeared last November." She smiled and gestured toward her computer, "I checked _Bing_."

"DC missing persons investigated but the case went cold. It didn't go anywhere," he said. _Yeah, this could be our victim. _

"How can that be?" Bones asked in a horrified voice. "The woman was a surgeon!"

"Single, no kids. Outside of work there was no one to miss her," Hannah said.

Bones looked horrified, and something else.

_Ah, it's no big deal. She'll feel better when we catch the person who did this. She doesn't like when the dead have no voice. She'll probably work straight through this case. Especially if it is this doctor. I'll mention something to Sweets; maybe he can help._

Then Hannah smiled at him and he forgot about his partner and her strange reaction to this case. Saying a short good-bye, he left Bones sitting at their table and walked out with Hannah. As they walked to his SUV, he slung an arm around her waist and smiled. This is what happiness was supposed to feel like. Right?


	2. The Photo ID

"Did Lauren have any enemies?" Booth asked the hospital director.

"Lauren was not a woman of passion," he said. "Some residents complained that they were over-worked and under-appreciated, but nothing out of the ordinary."

Booth laughed, "Kind of like you and your squinterns there, hey Bones?"

"No, I appreciate them," she said indignantly.

"Kay…so what about her personal life?" he asked.

"Look at her schedule," the man said. "She didn't have any time for a personal life."

"Rumors…nothing?" he asked. _I bet Lauren worked herself like Bones does. _

"The transplant services helicopter team," he said.

"That sounds scandalous," Booth joked.

"I heard the pilot had a thing for Lauren," the director said. "Un requited; lots of sexual tension."

"You got a name?" he asked.

"Chris Markham."

"What are these, please?" Bones asked. Booth had forgotten she was even there.

"Dr. Eames case files," the man answered. "She dictated them for transcription. I thought maybe if you heard her voice…"

"Why?" Bones cut him off. "It's the contact that matters not the tone of voice." She looked angry. She looked like her normal, irrationally rational self. It further annoyed Booth.

The hospital director looked down.

"Lauren was the best cardiac surgeon on the eastern sea board," he said.

"I find that hard to believe," she said shortly and in disbelief.

"Why?" the man seemed confused. Booth was confused too. _Why couldn't Lauren be the best cardiac surgeon? She's not going to spout off about the impossibility to measure those kinds of skills, is she? _His annoyance grew. But she simply said,

"We...we didn't hear about it."

"Excuse me?" the hospital director sounded offended.

_And damage control. Thanks Bones,_ he thought.

"Well, Dr. Brennan just wonders why someone of that importance could disappear…" he started.

"So, so quietly," she cut in. Her eyes looked sad.

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust," he said understandingly. "We don't actually fear death," he continued. "We fear that no one will notice our absence—that we will disappear without a trace."

_Here comes the argument,_ Booth thought without amusement. He knew Bones would argue that a person couldn't fear anything after death because there was nothing after death. He knew her arguments well. Her response was the opposite of anything he expected.

"That sounds correct." She pulled the victim's ID page out of the file. "What is this?"

"Dr. Eames photo ID," he said. Bones looked up with a weird expression. "I…I really must get back to the hospital."

Sighing Booth said, "I'll show you to the elevator."

"Booth," Bones called after him.

"Mmm-hmm?" He paused and turned back to her.

"Does this look like anyone to you?" she asked.

_What does she mean 'look like anyone to me'? I didn't know the victim._

"Um…she looks nice, but no. No one I know," he said. With that he went out and walked the hospital director out to the elevator. When the other man was gone, he started back toward his office to divide up the paperwork with Bones. When he turned around she was headed into the elevator.

"You're in a hurry Bones," he said annoyed. When she didn't answer right away, he felt a twinge of guilt and asked, "You alright?"

"I…um…I have a lot of questions, that's all." Then the doors shut.

_She's not ok,_ he realized. His thought about asking Sweets to check in on her came back again, and he headed to the Doctor's office to do just that.

_She's fine, _he assured himself. _I'll just have Sweets make sure._


	3. The Helicopter Pilot

"I guess I always figured Lauren just up and went, you know? Took off to Africa or Iraq or something," Chris said.

"She'd do something like that without telling you?" Booth asked. He felt doubtful.

_This woman sounds awfully familiar to me. I know that I've never met her, but still…_

"Lauren always followed her own kind of logic," he said with a small smile.

"Couldn't you ask any of her friends?" Bones asked. She also seemed to be doubtful of the pilot's theory.

"If she had friends, I didn't know any of them," he said. "What the hell was Lauren doing in Woodland?"

Before Booth could say that they hadn't figured that out yet, Bones was talking.

"It appears the victim was stabbed on her right side perhaps a year ago," she said.

"When did you find that out?" he asked surprised and irritated at the same time. Bones _never_ withheld information from him, but she'd never mentioned that the victim had been stabbed.

"Last night," she said quickly. "I'm sorry; I forgot…I forgot to tell you."

_She _forgot_? Bones never _forgets_ to tell me anything._ He was so thrown off by the fact that she hadn't told him about the stabbing, he sat back and let her take over the interview for a moment. How could they be so out of sync? And in front of a potential suspect no less!

"She was stabbed?" Chris asked disbelieving. Booth was still right there with him in the stunned department. It just wasn't like Bones to forget to tell him important information like this.

"Yes," Bones said.

"Lauren told me that she broke a couple ribs falling off her bicycle."

"Can you think of any problems she was having that could get her stabbed?" Brennan asked.

"No, no not really," he said. "She had some kind of an argument with the father of one of her transplant patients. I think his name was Darcy, Dorsey, something like that. You think he stabbed her?" he asked. "Can't you just check with emergency rooms?"

"She would have been capable of stitching the wound herself," Bones said.

_What? Shouldn't we check? Why is she so adamant that the victim…I mean Lauren would stitch the wound herself? Is it logically more likely that she went to the emergency room. It's more _logical_. What is up with her?_

Booth was still off balance by his partner's behavior. He didn't know what to make of it.

"Why? why would Lauren get stabbed and then not report it?"

_Finally, something I can answer._

"Usually when a woman doesn't report an assault its domestic," Booth said.

The pilot smiled a little. "Well, Lauren wasn't married and she didn't have a boyfriend."

"You weren't her boyfriend?" Bones asked.

It was another question that was out of the ordinary for her.

"No," he said. There was an all too familiar trace of longing in his eyes.

"Oh, okay, I see, you wanted to get a little bit more, there with Lauren Eames and she turned you down." _There we go,_ Booth thought. _Corner him and make him confess._

"Every time," Chris said. Booth was surprised at his blunt honesty. "Ah, maybe she was right. We were polar opposite, but man. I could swear I saw in her eyes that she wanted more and…and then she was just gone."

"It's a myth that a person's intentions and desires can be seen in the eyes," Bones said.

_Now, that sounds like Bones. Why was I worried? She's still the same insensitive, overly logical person I've always known._

"Look in my eyes," the pilot said. "Is that a myth?"

Surprisingly, there was a long pause where Bones did just that. It made the old feelings of jealousy flare in the pit of his stomach. He squelched them down and said,

"Ok, you know what? Stop making crazy eyes at my partner, here. You're not making your case any good. Let's go Bones. C'mon."

They walked toward the SUV in silence. On the drive, Booth said,

"Man, was that guy crazy or what?"

She was quiet and looking out the window, but at his words she turned back to him.

"He is a man in pain who is missing the woman he loved, Booth. I find that I did not like your rudeness toward him, nor do I appreciate your making a joke at his expense." Then she turned back to staring out the window.

_What the hell? Did that just come out of her mouth? _

He intended to ask her about it, but they had just pulled up to the Jeffersonian and she was already out of the car.


End file.
